and so we embarked on our trip to the german capital of BERLIN (pronounced bare-leen in german). took the CityNightLine at 11+pm and slept on the train from heidelberg hbf until we reached berlin-spandau station at 7plus the next morning. had about 5 hours sleep on the train seats but they were much more comfortable as compared to the airplane seats we had on the way here.
settled in our hostel in charlottenberg, which was in west berlin. small and clean place. cheap too! 9.50 euros per nite. haha. thanks to jt's 'let's go europe on a budget' book. and so we left the hostel to see berlin. at berlin hauptbahnhof we found my good friend, dunkin donuts!! happiness! hahaha..
walking on around east berlin, we saw the reichstag with its magnificent new dome, the brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial, the iMax centre, checkpoint charlie and what was left of the berlin wall (6 narrow graffiti-ed slabs at potsdamer platz).
the next day we continued our tour in west berlin, which consisted mainly of SHOPPING for the benefit of the girls HAHA. tonnes of shopping centres! i think the guys would have to admit that the shopping centres were a welcome stop from the snow and rain outside, haha.
on sunday we had to wake up early early early to catch the 7plus train to dresden. along the way we met some dresden FC fans who were drunk and noisy and interrupted our sleep. they had to travel like 3 hours to their match from berlin hbf!! imagine doing that every wkend. haha the power of football.
and so we arrived at our hostel in dresden-neustadt. it's such a pretty cosy place!! check out the double bed on the double bunk bed (which isnt very clear in the middle pic)! haha and the cool star-shaped lights in the corridor. jt and i slept on the upper bunk and we both had our fair share of knocking our heads on the low ceiling.
left the hostel to check out the dresden sights. the weather was SO GOOD, a comfortable 10degC. visited the zwinger museum (which we almost mistook for the royal palace due to its grandeur), the opera house, the church of our lady, the river elbe and the schloss (which was the least impressive, ironically).
our last day in dresden already! we took the local tram to radebeul, which was famous for its vineyards. took a bus until we reached their very small schloss. it had a very manicured lawn as you can see in the 1st picture of the 2nd row. we climbed and climbed up the slope to the observatory where we got a great view of dresden (or maybe radebeul only haha)! after that we took the tram back to dresden neustadt station when we realized we had missed the timings for the traditional steam train. and it was back to bruchsal after that on expensive ICE trains!!
No comments:
Post a Comment